Praise the Mutilated World

Karl Blossfeldt

"Try to praise the mutilated world.

Remember June's long days,

and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.

The nettles that methodically overgrow

the abandoned homesteads of exiles.

You must praise the mutilated world.

You watched the stylish yachts and ships;

one of them had a long trip ahead of it,

while salty oblivion awaited others.

You've seen the refugees going nowhere,

you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.

You should praise the mutilated world.

Remember the moments when we were together

in a white room and the curtain fluttered.

Return in thought to the concert where music flared.

You gathered acorns in the park in autumn

and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.

Praise the mutilated world

and the gray feather a thrush lost,

and the gentle light that strays and vanishes

and returns." - Adam Zagajewski

Praised be the One who created the human heart and filled it with Longing. The heart, having been made so, yearns and yearns, not knowing what it years for. "It is something, it is something", it whispers, but the something is rarely kind enough to speak in colour or shape. The heart, making itself susceptible to even the most abominable pleasure, then says: "Oh, why would I care to know? I may remain ignorant, I may never give my yearning a name. But please, you, who sends this feeling, send some again. For it is sweet. Sweeter than the first touch of sugar, sweeter than the honey that flows in the rivers of Paradise". The heart then consoles itself: "So what if I am ignorant? I feel, I sense, I don't know who my something is but I know how my something feels. And it defeats any image and vision!"

Praised be the One who created Memory, for I am Memory. I see a face, a body, a nation, a religion, an ethnicity. I see my parent's faces, and their parents' faces and say again: "I am Memory." Everything I am, everything I know, is sustained by the Memory. I remember, and then, in the Tablet of my Mind, I begin the story of me. Sometimes, something happens - a bird sings, a melody appears, a scent arrives, and invites past into the present. "The Story of Me" suddenly changes a little, and then my present changes, and with it, my future. How beautiful to be a Memory! How beautiful to alter the Time by the means of Memory: "He curses time and I am time". What delight is to know that the Time exists for me - that the first moment, on the first day of existence, appeared there just for me! What joy to know that the whole space, whole animal and plant world, whole of humanity, my parents, their parents' parents, and their parents all happened just for me! What laughter it brings to my heart knowing that I am the Unity of everything - of every time, every person, everything that ever existed and exists. It is enough to make one perpetually in love! Praised be the One who is Time, and who said: "I am mighty Time", and who is Eternity. Praised be the One who makes humans say: "Oh if I were to experience real rapture, real bliss, real joy, only once, just once, and then to be done with the world". Praised be the One who through Longing, made humans seek the moment that will undo the Time: "I am the mighty Time, the source of destruction." Praised be the One who made them seekers & lovers, for even if it takes them millions of years in the millions of times, they will arrive and their moment will be.

Praised be the One who is the Storyteller, the Writer, the Author. Praised be He who created the Pen, and for the Pen, the Tablet. What love it is to have Him write the Story upon my Nakedness! What joy to read the letters written there! what sweetness to know I was imagined in Eternity before I was born in Time! Now I imagine, now I write, now I look, and now I read! The storyteller of the Storyteller, the author of the Author. How sweet we are entangled like this - where does one start and the other begins?! The heart is pleased with ignorance, it cares not to know, for it was whispered to it in a dream: "To know is to separate!", and then, a crying, sorrowful voice whispered again: "Please, do not be separate." Would I have heart to injure a weeping, yearning lover? Love allows a playful cruelty, and never a cruelty that wounds! Praised be the One who is the Lover and the Beloved.

Praised be the One who created the Mutilated World and covered the bottoms of the seas with sea urchins so that the feet can't rest. Praised be His Mutilated world, for it is a playful cruelty, and never a cruelty that wounds.